Letting go of CONTROL & Live in the Flow

By Dr. Doris Jeanette

Delightfully, I just reconnected with a client I had worked with twenty years ago at the Women and Spirituality Conference in Mankato. She asked, ÒWould you like to know the one thing that helped me the most from our work together?Ó She touched her heart, ÒYou taught me the difference between how power feels in my body and how control feels in my body. I use it to this day to know the difference.Ó

Her words were pleasure to my ears and they reminded me of how important this awareness is if we want to connect sex with love and spirit. To experience Divine Sex, (read May, 2003 column) we have to recognize the difference in energy flow between manmade Control and the real, authentic, Divine Juice.

At the second Advanced Feminist Therapy Institute in 1983 in Washington, DC, my presentation was called ÒA Conceptual Model for Discriminating between Real Feelings and Defensive Feelings.Ó I presented the difference between Power and Control in terms of sensing emotional and physical energy. This difference is also the difference between health and disease. If we engage in Mechanic Sex (read October, 2001 column) we become weaker. If we engage in Divine Sex we become stronger. And needless to say, we will be happier and more satisfied.

In the early days of my practice, I had noticed that people confused Power with Control. They acted as if they were the same phenomena. So my task was to teach people that real power is energy and it flows like a healthy, natural river. In contrast, controlled energy is like a stagnant, smelly cesspool and it has no verve or voltage. This means that all defensive energy is weak and ineffective.

But I noticed that it was hard to convince people to give up their controlling, defensive energy because they thought it kept them safe. They were not aware of how much they were actually inhibiting their own emotional and physical expression. And neither were they aware of how their controlling behaviors were actively pushing away the love that they so desperately needed and wanted. And no amount of talking about it changed their physical reality.

Eventually, I realized people had to sense the difference between Power and Control in their own bodies in order to master their own destinies. This is when my approach moved beyond verbal therapy and relaxation/imagery sessions into an emotional, spiritual, energetic approach.

I learned that we have to see, hear, smell, taste and really feel what is going on in our own flesh in order to know what is happening inside of us and outside of us. We have to have a concrete experience of what is happening with the energy in our heart, body and heads. That is the only way we can prove to ourselves, which events actually make us weaker and which ones make us stronger.

In order to do this, we have to become aware of both the physical and the emotional feelings in the body. We also have to become aware of the flow and lack of flow of energy throughout our bodies and around our bodies. Furthermore we have to become aware of the thoughts that are occurring in our minds. Any treatment where we are stuck in our heads, observing and talking, will only serve to keep us controlled and inhibited. This means that we need to perceive reality with our physical bodies. This is the only way we can realize our full human potential and use our body, mind and spirit to be a holographic entity.

But this is exactly where it starts to get really scary. The reason Sex has been so controlled throughout so many centuries is because everyone is afraid of it. We are scared to death that if we let go of Control that we will be Out of Control. But in reality, Out of Control energy is only another from of Control. Out of Control energy is too fast, crazy, exaggerated or depressed. Control and Out of Control energy are exactly the same phenomena. We control ourselves by putting the brakes on and we go Out of Control by pushing the gas pedal to the floorboard. So Control or Out of Control energy is anything we do that alters our natural life force. This is what my graphic presentation was explaining.

In contrast to Control, Natural Energy is alive, vital and strong. When we live in the flow, we are vital and strong. When we live in the flow, we are driving our cars appropriately through all kinds of conditions. But this flow scares us because it is a life force that is bigger than our little ego. It is not our conscious mind that is driving the car; it is some other part of us. Of course it is scary to surrender to physical, emotional and spiritual reality. But if we want to live fully, we will learn to connect to our authentic self and let this part of us drive our car. When we let go of control, we naturally access our real, authentic power in the flesh. Then we are connected to the Divine and to each other in a real physical, emotional and spiritual way.

Flow happens spontaneously, in the moment. We cannot make it happen, we can only stop it from happening. Surrendering to our natural energy pays big dividends. It will make us healthier and more joyful. And of course we can learn to sense our life force moving in our body so that we know when we are in a Control or Out of Control state. And we can learn to tell when we are flowing. We can also learn which situations, events and thoughts make us weaker and which ones actually enhances our energy. And we can have fun all along the journey. We do not have to wait till we get somewhere; all we have to do is flow in the moment.

Back to the conference, with the help of her husband and children, my smiling client was selling her lovely, creative crafts. She was obviously relaxed as I looked deep into her eyes. She said, ÒThese eyes are happier eyes now!Ó We hugged each other in comfort with joy and gratitude.

Fortunately, I had moved beyond verbal psychotherapy into a more body, energy centered approach before I met her. Many times in my own journey, my Control stops my Power from flowing because I get so scared. But Bless the Divine Energy of the Universe for giving me enough courage to listen to my heart often enough to keep the cesspool from taking over.

Doris Jeanette, licensed psychologist, is Director of the Center for the New Psychology in Philadelphia and author of Dr. JeanetteÕ Natural Process for Opening the Heart, a set of audiocassette tapes that are highly recommended by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD. Her free, international newsletter, The Vibrant Moment is available at www.drjeanette.com. Contact: drjeanete@drjeanette.com Call 215-732-6197.